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George Caley –
Robert Brown’s collecting partner
Joan B. Webb
Webb, Joan B. (10/48 Khartoum Rd North Ryde NSW 2113) 2002. George Caley –
Robert Brown’s collecting partner. Cunninghamia 7(4): 617–621. (Poster presented at
Robert Brown 200 conference.)
George Caley (1770–1829) collected plant specimens for Joseph Banks in the
colony of New South Wales from 1800 to 1810. This paper outlines Caley’s
contacts with Robert Brown in New South Wales in 1802 and subsequent years;
his contacts with Brown back in England; their collecting forays in the colony,
and Brown’s respect for Caley’s ability and botanical knowledge.
George Caley (1770–1829) collected plant specimens for Joseph Banks in the colony of
New South Wales from 1800 to 1810. His altercations with Governor King and the
Rev. Samuel Marsden, and his reputation as an irascible character have coloured the
historical record so that his botanical contribution has often been minimised (Webb
1995). But Robert Brown saw evidence of Caley’s ability during their contacts in the
colony, and their friendship continued when Caley returned to England in October
1810. This paper is based on a poster displayed at the Robert Brown Conference in
Sydney, in May 2002, and outlines George Caley’s contacts with Robert Brown in
New South Wales and subsequently in England.
George Caley and Robert Brown
The Investigator arrived in Sydney on 9 May 1802 (Vallance et al. 2001). As early as 18
June 1802, Robert Brown and the gardener Peter Good, and perhaps Ferdinand Bauer
too, walked with Caley from Parramatta (Caley’s base) to North Rocks, a distance of
six or seven miles (10–11 km). Brown recorded in his diary, ‘A few plants found …
Caley accompanied us … his loquacity, his names of plants generic. Mostly bad
Greek. However he is an observer and should be encouraged … his collection not
numerous but well preserved … ’.
The next day the party, including Caley, walked to Castle Hill and returned to dinner
at Parramatta. They then went on to Windsor and across the Nepean into the
mountains near the Grose River, ‘its banks steep and rocky, but not perpendicular.’
There is no record in Brown’s diary of Caley being present on this later excursion.
The Investigator was in Sydney for twelve weeks, and left on 21 July to complete
Matthew Flinders’ survey of the coastline. The ship returned to Sydney in June 1803,
the ship’s hull so rotten that she could have foundered at any time. Flinders decided
to return to England with his charts in the Porpoise, the only ship available. Brown
selected the best of his specimens to return also, while he and Bauer elected to stay
until the Investigator could be repaired.
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Governor King was anxious to help, and wrote to Banks in September 1803, ‘I have
supplied Mr Brown with a very good apartment of boxes for the Porpoise’s plant
cabin … Caley is very angry because he cannot get the same boxes … I have given
directions that some should be made for him. I believe he is very angry at having Mr
Brown here, who he cannot help considering as a laborer in the field that ought to be
wrought by himself. He has all he wants but is by no means satisfied.’
This animosity towards Caley may or may not have been justified, but King’s
comments are not supported by Caley’s own words to Banks in a letter of 7 August
1803, ‘I am glad that Mr Brown will remain some length of time here … in some
respects I flatter myself I may benefit him in showing him the most likely places to
meet with new plants … on the other hand, I know I shall be much benefitted by Mr
Brown for in general, until the present, I have nobody to discourse upon the same
pursuit, for want of which, the pleasures of the study were abstracted.’
On 19 October 1803, Caley took Brown to the Cow Pastures, an area to the south of
Sydney near Camden that Caley had already explored; Brown collected a number of
new specimens on their four-day excursion. At the end of November Brown left in
the Lady Nelson to go to Tasmania for what was to become a protracted stay, longer
than he had anticipated. He was not to return until August 1804.
On 14 September 1804, Brown walked to Parramatta; the many references to Caley’s
work for this day in Brown’s diary indicate that the two men spent some time
comparing specimens. Caley’s animal collection was also examined. The next day
was also spent with Caley, who showed Brown his orchid collection. Four days later
they were both in Sydney to meet Colonel William Paterson who examined with
interest Brown’s collection from Port Dalrymple (George Town) and the River
Derwent in Tasmania.
Caley gave a number of his choice specimens to Brown, always with a generic and
specific name attached, but in his later publications, and in his processing of
specimens for the herbarium, Brown did not always acknowledge Caley’s contribution.
Groves and Moore (1989) in their paper on Brown’s collection in Australia refer to an
herbarium sheet of the fern Adiantum hispidulum, supposedly gathered by Brown.
Three old labels accompany the sheet, one indicating ‘Port Jackson’ with no date, the
second ‘North Rocks August 1802’ and the third ‘Dove Dale Feb. 1804.’ Vallance
(1990) points out that the first, of course, might be due to Brown, but the lack of date
is no help. As to the other two, Brown was away with Flinders in August 1802, and
in Tasmania in February 1804. Vallance concludes that the North Rocks and Dove
Dale records are annexed from Caley. Another specimen, an orchid Pterostylis nutans
(Caley’s Druid’s Cap Dicksoni) is attributed to Brown (Clements 1989), ‘Port Jackson,
North Rocks, Jul. 1804. R.Brown.’ This is not possible, as Brown was in Tasmania at
this time. These errors may not necessarily be a deliberate evasion by Brown, but the
evidence seems conclusive that Brown published a number of Caley manuscript names
without acknowledgement. Brown and Bauer, with their massive collection, left
Sydney on 23 May 1805.
Brown developed a high regard for Caley’s work and was the first botanist, after
Banks and Dryander, to have the opportunity to examine Caley’s plant specimens
and use them for his publications. On 17 January 1809, Brown read a paper to the
Linnean Society. In his closing remarks he said, ‘Besides the Proteaceae described or
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619
noticed in this paper, I am acquainted with several very beautiful species, chiefly of
Grevillea and Persoonia, discovered in New Holland by Mr George Caley, a most
assiduous and accurate botanist, who, under the patronage of Sir Joseph Banks, has
for upwards of eight years being engaged in examining the plants of New South
Wales, and whose numerous discoveries will, it is hoped, be soon given to the public,
either by himself, or in such manner as to obtain for him that reputation among
botanists to which he is well entitled.’
In Brown’s Prodromus of 1810, p. 329, he wrote in his dedication of the orchid genus
Caleana, in Latin, ‘Genus pulchrum et valde distinctum dixi in honorem Georgii Caley,
botanici periti et accurati … ’ in honour of George Caley, a skilful and accurate botanist.
Caley was well received by the botanical fraternity when he returned to England late
in 1810, ‘Mr Dickson called on me and I went with him to town — then to Sir Joseph’s
and afterwards to Mr Brown’s.’ (Caley’s Diary, 1811). James Dickson was a leading
cryptogamic (non-flowering plants) botanist with a successful herb and seed shop in
Covent Garden. He was one of the founders of the Horticultural Society of London
and the Linnean Society, and it is significant that he befriended Caley and continued
to give him support during the years Caley remained in England.
In August 1811 Caley settled down in a rural area about 10 km north-east of
Manchester, occupied with cleaning, sorting and naming his specimens. He
continued to correspond with Brown and Banks. Brown visited Caley in Manchester
in October 1815, Caley having written to Brown in July, ‘If you can in any shape put
up with a Botany Bay reception, I will endeavour to make you as comfortable as I
can, and shall be glad of your company … ’.
After Caley’s death in 1829, Brown (1830) published a paper on the Proteaceae,
naming Grevillea caleyi R. Br., a plant, now rare, first found by Caley in 1805 near
Belrose (a Sydney suburb not far from Narrabeen Lagoon). Caley wrote an account of
this four-day journey, ‘A Journey to the Sea’, which took him from Captain Macarthur’s
farm at Pennant Hills (west of Sydney), through present day St Ives to Narrabeen
Lagoon and the sea. He returned by the upper reaches of Middle Harbour (Caley
1805).
Caley and the eucalypts
It is fitting that the last word on Caley and Brown concerning the eucalypts, a major
component of Sydney vegetation, should come from Dr L.A.S. Johnson, late Director
of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney. In 1988 Dr Johnson stated that he had gained
an impression from examination of Caley’s specimens and notes that he (Caley) knew
much more about the Port Jackson eucalypts than anyone else for the next half
century or more. Robert Brown did not study the eucalypts in depth; George Bentham
struggled with them but was unable to do a really good job as he was not on the spot,
as Caley had been. Perhaps Caley’s greatest contribution to Australian botany is that
he was the first to recognise hybridization in the genus Eucalyptus, which he did as
early as 1810; later more eminent workers, such as the Rev. Dr William Woolls and
the great Ferdinand von Mueller believed such did not, and could not, happen.
Today it is well accepted that hybrids do commonly occur (L.A.S. Johnson pers.
comm. 1988).
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Fig. 1. Grevillea caleyi R.Br., collected by Caley near Belrose in 1805, and now listed as
Endangered because of its very restricted geographic distribution.
Webb, George Caley — Robert Brown’s collecting partner
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Joseph H. Maiden, another Director of Sydney’s Botanic Gardens said, in dedicating
a New England Ironbark, Eucalyptus caleyi, to Caley’s memory, ‘The vernacular name,
“Caley’s Ironbark”, is short; it commemorates a worthy pioneer botanist whose work
requires much more emphasis than it has hitherto received.’ (Maiden 1904–1924).
References
Brown, R. (1811) On the Proteaceae of Jussieu. Transactions of the Linnean Society 10 pp. 15–226,
read 17 Jan. 1809 (London, 1811).
Brown, R. (1830) Supplement to his 1810 Prodromus, Supplementum Primum Proteaceas Novas.
Caley, G. (1803) Letter of Caley to Banks, 7 August 1803, Banks Papers, Vol. 20, p. 101.
Caley, G. (1805) An Account of a Journey to the Sea in the month of February 1805. Mitchell Library
FM4/2568.
Caley, G. (1811–1817) Diary held by University College, London, Bloomsbury Science Library.
Caley, G. (1815) Letter of Caley to Brown, 8 June 1815. Brown Correspondence, M1193, MS32440,
p. 85.
Clements, M.A. (1989) Australian Orchid Research: 1.
Groves, E.W. & Moore, D.T. (1989) A list of cryptogams and gymnospermous plant specimens
in the British Museum (Natural History) gathered by Robert Brown in Australia 1801–05.
Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales 111: 65–102.
King, P. (1803) Letter of King to Banks, September 1803, Historical Records of NSW 5: 229.
Maiden, J.H. (1904–1924) Forest Flora of New South Wales 6: 87 (Government Printer: Sydney).
Vallance, T.G. (1990) Jupiter Botanicus in the Bush: Robert Brown’s Australian field-work,
1801–05. Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales: 112: 49–86.
Vallance, T.G., Moore, D.T. & Groves, E.W. (2001) Nature’s investigator: The diary of Robert Brown
in Australia 1801–1805 (ABRS: Canberra.).
Webb, J.B. (1995) George Caley: 19th century naturalist (Surrey Beatty & Sons: Sydney).
Manuscript accepted 21 January 2003
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